A Day in the Life
by TheStorytellerWolf
Summary: Drabble collection. Chp. 4: It took a stronger girl than her to feel intimidating and kick ass when she's soaking wet and in a one piece.
1. Two AM

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

**Prompt: 2 A.M**

_Clackclackclackclack_

Eight o'clock at night and he was working again.

The only light in the room came from the computer screen, and everything was illuminated in an almost eerie, greenish glow. The blue eyes behind the black rimmed glasses were obscured by the glare caused by the light.

_Clackclackclackclack_

"Are you sure you shouldn't be sleeping right now, Jeremie?" asked Aelita, looking on with concern. Humans weren't nocturnal creatures by nature, after all.

"It's only ten," came the distracted reply as the blond haired boy genius paused in his rapid fire typing to squint at some notes. "I'll go to bed after I wrap up this part of the program."

"If you say so, Jeremie."

_Clackclackclackclack_

Midnight, and he still wasn't asleep. The pink clad AI propped her head up on her arm. "Jeremie, you don't need to finish the whole thing tonight. I've been in Lyoko for ten years; I can wait another day."

"I know, I know. I just need to fix this one part…"

She sighed and blinked off of his screen.

_Clackclackclackclack_

One AM.

She came back to see her carbon based friend still in his computer chair. Aelita scowled and propped her hands up on her hips.

"Jeremie!"

"I'm almost done, I swear!"

_Clackclackclackclack_

Two AM. She peered out at him from her window behind his enlarged coding window.

"JEREMIE BELPOIS!"

"AAAGH!"

"You've barely had eight hours of sleep this entire week!"

"But-"

"No buts! Now save your work and go to sleep!"

"But-"

"Didn't I just say no buts? You. Bed. Now."

"But-"

"Ah?"

"Yes ma'am."


	2. Metaphor

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

**Prompt: Metaphor**

He decided that XANA was a mosquito. Why? Because everybody hated the stupid program, and yet, without it their friendship wouldn't exist. Just like everybody hated the damned blood sucking insects, and yet if they weren't around the web of life would be incomplete and more than likely in ruin.

Without XANA, there would have been nothing to tie these five very different teenagers together. True, Odd and Ulrich could very well have become the good friends they were anyway just because of the fact that they were roommates. True, Yumi and Ulrich could very well still have crushes on each other because of their lessons in Pencak Silat with Jim.

But he would have no one. He, Jeremie Belpois, would still be alone, the shy geek who stayed in his room and toyed around with his robots.

He, Jeremie Belpois, who more than likely would have gone from Kadic Academy to that school for gifted children his father wanted him to attend.

He, Jeremie Belpois, would never have met the girl of his dreams. Because she would be twenty something years old living a life in which she didn't even know his name.

So, in the end, he had to give thanks to XANA. Because in a perverted way, despite all the woe, the heart ache, and sleepless nights he had endured, it helped him.

It helped all of them become stronger.

Better.

XANA, despite all its efforts to destroy their group, was responsible for its creation, and its own eventual destruction.


	3. Sky

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

**Prompt: Sky**

She had taken up the habit of sneaking onto the rooftop after hours when it seemed the entire city, or at least the school, had shut down for the night. After even the streetlamps had shut off so that the area was only lit by the gentle grace of the stars high, high up in the sky. It was… comforting, to perch on the edge of the roof and swing her legs in the air back and forth and stare up at the night sky with only her own thoughts and the sounds of nature as her companions.

The first time she came up here was an accident. She couldn't sleep that night

_Too hot. Too cold. Blankets were stifling. Muffled laughter. Muffled sobs. Crickets chirping. Wind whistling. _

So she decided to take a walk; just a short one, from one end of the corridor to the other. She had heard that doing something physical would calm the mind down for sleep.

_New places. New faces. Foreign concepts. Classes tomorrow. Nasty quips of people behind their backs. What _was_ a bitch anyway? Last she heard it was a female dog…_

After a couple of circuits back and forth her feet eventually took her to the stairwell. That was when she heard Jim berating a couple of the upperclassmen for sneaking out. Her heart started hammering.

_Couldn't be caught now. It hadn't even been a full day on Earth yet! And Jeremie would be so angry at her for getting into trouble so soon…_

"Now I don't know WHAT you were doing out so late-"

"But Jim!"

"No 'but Jim's out of you!"

"But-"

"What did I just say?"

And so it went on, student trying to wiggle out of a tough spot with the teacher. It was all too easy to imagine herself in place of these midnight escapees. Her breaths came out in shallow pants as she struggled to keep quiet as she backtracked back up the stairs, only to remember that her room was a floor below, where the dreaded troll with a permanent band aid waited to snatch any wandering billy-goats.

She paused uncertainly on the steps, pale hand gripping the railing so hard that her knuckles turned white, torn between the sanctuary of her room and the safe retreat to unknown parts of the building. Her choice was made when clanks echoed up from Jim lumbering up the stairs.

The girl scampered up, and up, and up, and didn't stop until she practically ran into a door in the darkness. An 'eep' escaped past her lips.

"What? Who's there?" Jim's rough voice shouted from the darkness. Those heavy footsteps started to increase in speed. "No use being quiet, there's nowhere to go but down!"

She looked over her shoulder, eyes open wide to catch any available light. The image of an angry Jim-bull barreling up and smashing her against the door refused to sink back into the crevices of her mind. She quickly turned back around and swept her hands over the surface of the door, caught the handle, and pushed it open to be greeted with a rush of cool night air.

She nearly tripped over herself as the door yielded to her, but she turned that momentum into a lurching u-turn to hide behind the door. A scarce five seconds passed before the door again smashed open to reveal Jim, clad in a wife beater and dark grey sweatpants, looking and squinting at the barren landscape for his prey like a half awake bear.

_Please go back down, please, please, oh please…_

Apparently her little unheard plea worked, as after pacing a couple minutes in front of the door, Jim turned around with a grumble and headed back into the stairwell. A sigh exited her lungs, and the pink haired girl practically crumpled onto the ground in relief.

Aelita smiled a little to herself and smoothed her fingers over the soft fabric of her nightshirt. Jade colored eyes lifted up from the dark school grounds to the brilliantly lit sky. That night, after calming down from her close encounter with Jim, she had actually fallen asleep up here on the hard ground, playing connect-the-dots with the stars.

The rooftop had become her own little sanctuary, where she could go to be alone with only the sky as her company.


	4. Lost Scene

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me

**Prompt: Lost Scene**

XANA was seriously pushing it today. Attacking them at school was one thing, attacking them in the _pool_ was another thing entirely. Though she supposed that she should be thankful that the rest of the class was chased out by XANA's chosen person-to-be-possessed-for-the-day guy, but then she remembered that she was in a _bathing suit._

It took a stronger girl than her to feel intimidating and kick ass when she's _soaking wet and in a one piece_.

Yumi shivered violently from where she was huddled behind a rack of water polo balls, her hands clamped around her elbows as she listened to the heavy breathing of the thug XANA had decided to take over clomping around the swimming pool.

_Clompclompclomp…_

Okay, so, he was going around in a circle; waiting for her to crack, no doubt. Yumi swallowed heavily and turned her head to peek through the cracks of the balls. The thug's broad back was turned towards her as he bent over to look under the tables. Quick as a flash, the girl jumped to her feet and lunged for the changing rooms.

The sound of her bare feet slapping against the hard concrete of the floor brought XANA's minion into a roaring charge. She didn't dare look over her shoulder and take a look at how close he was; she'd lose the precious seconds she'd need to make it into the cha-

She felt the breath knocked out of her lungs before registering the jarring _crack_ of her head meeting the tiled floor. There was no pain, just a numbing shock that was the entire right side of her head and temple. Her vision went in and out, and she became aware of the thug's weight on top of her being knocked off and a furious yell.

"Nnrrg…" she groaned, beating back the urge to huddle in the fetal position in order to get unsteadily to her feet.

"Whoa, easy there." Warmth and soft cloth against her bare skin as someone steadied her. "Oh God, Yumi, I'm so sorry. I tried to get here faster, but XANA had some of this guy's buddy guarding the outside of this place."

She turned her head and squinted her eyes at the mass of brown hair next to her. Then she looked down into Ulrich's concerned- _was that a blush? -_ face and immediately backpedaled out of his arms.

"It's fine," Yumi said, trying to look as 'fine' as she could be with her unsteady legs. She could feel the heat of a blush growing in her pale cheeks. "I'm fine, thanks for the help Ulrich. I could've taken care of it though."

Ulrich made an annoyed, clicking sound with his tongue and looked away from her to where the thug was getting back to his feet. He picked up the broken off shaft of a broom from the ground from where he dropped it. _No doubt from when he was saving me_.

"Yeah, right," he grumbled, spreading his feet into a more stable pose as he held the stick out in front of him. "You're bleeding, by the way."

"What?"

The thug roared and charged forward again. Ulrich snapped the shaft out with quick jabs and then swept the possessed man off of his feet with a well place swipe of his leg.

"I said," Ulrich said once more, slowly, "That you're bleeding. From your temple." He quickly ducked down as the brute tried to decapitate him with his bare hands.

Yumi felt the side of her head, and when she brought her hand away, sure enough, there was the dark red of her own blood. _Oh god._ She turned to the man and growled, "You're going to pay for that."

All thoughts of her state of dress and state of physical health left her mind as she took a running step forward and kicked at the side of the thug's head. The man let out an electronic sounding roar and fell to the side from the force of the kick, only to pop back up good as new a second later.

Yumi stood on one leg, with her hands fisted at her hips. Her other leg still hung, bent, in midair. And then the world caught up with her and her head started to pound and a rushing sound filled her ears as pain radiated from both her temple and her shin. She groaned and quickly set her leg back onto the ground, her right hand pressed up against her temple as her eyes clenched themselves closed.

"Yumi! Look out!"

Her body met with the ground for the second time in five minutes. This time, there was a cushioning hand protecting her head, and when she opened her eyes again, she was met with Ulrich's worried eyes. _Wait, did his face get redder?_

Suddenly, she was much more aware of the situation; from the coldness of the ground compared to the warmth that came from this boy's body, and the way his arms were wrapped around her. _And did his eyes always have copper streaks in them?_

_CRACK!_

"So," started an unusually high pitched voice behind Ulrich. "You two done doing eye sex?"

There was a flurry of limbs as Yumi and Ulrich separated themselves from each other. Each refused to look at the other as they glared daggers at Odd, who twirled Ulrich's broken broom handle in his hands. The thug could be seen splashing in the pool behind him. _Thank god we're at the deep end of the pool._

"Oh, you look so cute!" laughed Odd, pointing at them with the shattered end of the boom stick. "I should get a picture and make a comparison of your faces to a tomato."

"Shut. UP. Odd," Ulrich growled, finally rousing himself to his feet and snatching the piece of wood from the shorter boy's hands.

"And YOU!" Odd started, dancing back a step or two as he pointed at Ulrich. "You look like you have boobs!"

Yumi turned her head involuntarily to look at Ulrich's shirt. Sure enough, there were two, vaguely circular imprints on his chest from her wet swimsuit. She was sure her head was defying the laws of science by not bursting into flames.

"I'm… I'm going to go, uh, change," she murmured, finally standing and lurching her way to the changing room. Behind her, she could hear Odd telling Ulrich that the tower was deactivated and then continuing to make fun of him and his 'moobs'.


End file.
